It’s long been known that George Kittle is one of the best blocking tight ends in the NFL.
That fire and unique asset he brings to the field every week for the 49ers began at an early age, Kittle revealed, with the help of two people very close to him.
“When I was in like 5th grade, my dad was our coach of tackle football, and the only drills we did was the entire team would have pads, blocking pads, and we’d all do O-line blocking drills -- everybody,” Kittle said on a recent episode of “The Pat McAfee Show”. “Whether you’re running back, quarterback, wide receiver, DB, corner, whatever it was, we were all doing O-line drills.
“And he’d always tell us, ‘Hey, you’re all going to try your best to play offensive line, but not all of you are going to be good enough to play offensive line and you’re going to have to play another position like quarterback or wide receiver or running back. And that’s OK, we’ll still like you, but O-line is the best position in football.’ So that was my mindset growing up.”
Kittle held on to that mindset throughout his childhood and into his college years at the University of Iowa.
“When I got to college, one of the first things coach said to me, 'cause I was 200 pounds, was, ‘If you don’t learn how to run block, you’ll never play here,'" Kittle continued. "And then run blocking at Iowa, you’d get like 150 reps a day of just running into people. Every single day. So I was like, ‘Well, I’m either going to learn to love this or I’m going to hate my life every single day.’
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“And so I just went in with the mindset that I’m going to love this and I’m going to be better than everybody else at it and that’s my mindset now. If I’m not getting the ball, I’m going to influence the game in the run game. And I’m going to make the guy across from me’s life a living hell.”
From the fifth grade to the NFL, Kittle listened to his dad, and his coaches, and it's now paid off big time for the 49ers.
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And you can bet that if Kittle isn't the one running into the end zone for a touchdown, he's more likely than not helping block for whoever is.